The AMD Radeon R9 380X Review, Feat. ASUS STRIX
by Ryan Smith on November 23, 2015 8:30 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Radeon
- Asus
- Radeon 300
Grand Theft Auto V
The open world action game in our benchmark suite is also the last game in our suite: Grand Theft Auto V. The latest edition of Rockstar’s venerable series of open world games, Grand Theft Auto V was originally released to the last-gen consoles back in 2013. However thanks to a rather significant facelift for the current-gen consoles and PCs, along with the ability to greatly turn up rendering distances and add other features like MSAA and more realistic shadows, the end result is a game that is still among the most stressful of our benchmarks when all of its features are turned up.
On a quick note about settings, as Grand Theft Auto V doesn't have pre-defined settings tiers, I want to quickly note what settings we're using. For "Very High" quality we have all of the primary graphics settings turned up to their highest setting, with the exception of grass, which is at its own very high setting. Meanwhile 4x MSAA is enabled for direct views and reflections. This setting also involves turning on some of the advanced redering features - the game's long shadows, high resolution shadows, and high definition flight streaming - but not increasing the view distance any further.
Grand Theft Auto V is another game that punishes 2GB cards to a degree, which plays into the R9 380X’s favor. At 1080p this helps to keep the card 11% ahead of the GTX 960 and 5% ahead of the R9 380. That said, GTA is the one game where perhaps even the R9 380X isn’t powerful enough for no-compromises 1080p gaming, and while 38fps is more than playable (this was a 30fps console game), the 60fps PC standard will require giving up MSAA to hit that mark.
Meanwhile the 99th percentile framerates further drive home the point about 2GB cards being insufficient. However it also points out how even the R9 380X can’t stay above 30fps at all times, reiterating what we said above about possibly needing to drop MSAA to get the best 1080p performance on the R9 380X.
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Kalessian - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
The Crysis 3 numbers don't make sense to me, vsync get left on or something?Ryan Smith - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Nope. V-sync is off, and I can vouch that the instantaneous framerate does go over 60fps. That's just an amusing case of cards at this performance segment coming very close to averaging 60fps.DanNeely - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
For the price matchup table on the first page, the 4GB 960 starts at $220 vs $180 for the 2gb model. NVidia might not be splitting them apart by model number; but pricewise it has cards at both slots.tviceman - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Current cheapest 4gb GTX 960 on newegg (USA) is $180 w/o rebates. Next cheapest is $185 w/ additional $20 MIR. Next cheapest is $199 w/o rebate. Next cheapest is $210.There are plenty of 4gb GTX 960 cards for much less than $220.
nathanddrews - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
So... how much longer is AMD going to pretend that HDMI 2.0 doesn't exist? DP adapters are still MIA.extide - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Next gen GPU's dude...medi03 - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Cause dat 4k resolution is golden on card that can barely push 1440p...nathanddrews - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Irrelevant:1. Most 4K TVs that can do 4K60 4:4:4 over HDMI 2.0 can also do 1080p120, native input.
2. Games like Dota 2, LoL, and nearly all games prior to 2013 can be play 4K no problem by GPUs like this.
3. 4K60 video (YouTube, GameStream, etc.)
SpartyOn - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
This card is no better, and actually probably worse, than my three year old GTX 770 4GB and at best is equal to a GTX 960, which can be had for easily under $200.Is AMD even trying anymore?
looncraz - Monday, November 23, 2015 - link
Did you read the same review I did?The 380X is often 15% faster than the 960, and sometimes 30% faster... for average FPS. When it comes to the 99th percentile or minimum framerates there's just no comparison, 380x lays the smackdown on the 960.
Sometimes the 960 can do quite well, but it usually loses by quite a bit.
Your 770 is slower than the 960in some games, a bit faster in others. It is not as fast as the 380x, which is the same approximate performance of AMD's old 7970, which is a nearly four year old card.